


I Wanna Tear You Apart

by Dikhotomia, Logee



Series: 1000 Prompts Attempt 2: The (Slightly) Unorganized Mess [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, There is no Happy Ending Here, This is another kind of dark one, a 'what if Byleth got accidently turned into a new nemesis' AU, someone loses an eye
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:35:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dikhotomia/pseuds/Dikhotomia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Logee/pseuds/Logee
Summary: It's a page cut out of a history book in a way, the panoramic sight of four separate armies all spread out around one another, rain sheeting down in a soaking deluge. It's like a page cut out of the history books, but it's not a day of hope and triumph, it's a day of fear and suffering. She isn't Saint Seiros leading the Adrestian Army to victory, she's Edelgard Von Hresvelg, leading the armies of a half united Fódlan against a woman she had once called 'friend.'"She's been corrupted," Rhea had rasped at her, helplessly clutching her cloak. "I don't know what happened I--it's my fault I--" Edelgard had felt pity for her in that moment, briefly, fleetingly, but her glare had never wavered, her mercy never spared to the Nabatean at her feet. "Stop her--you have to--"ORRhea's attempt to bring Sothis back using Byleth goes very...verywrong, Edelgard picks up the pieces.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg & My Unit | Byleth, Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth
Series: 1000 Prompts Attempt 2: The (Slightly) Unorganized Mess [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1594495
Comments: 23
Kudos: 164





	I Wanna Tear You Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by twitter and once again a DM Convo with my friend Logee, so we back with a one-shot this time. It's violent and dark and still kind of Edelethy but be warned it's not...what you might expect and we're not sorry either.
> 
> Kind of an unoffical opening to my second attempt at the 1000 prompts too, with Panorama.
> 
> Enjoy!

It's a page cut out of a history book in a way, the panoramic sight of four separate armies all spread out around one another, rain sheeting down in a soaking deluge. It's like a page cut out of the history books, but it's not a day of hope and triumph, it's a day of fear and suffering. She isn't Saint Seiros leading the Adrestian Army to victory, she's Edelgard Von Hresvelg, leading the armies of a half united Fódlan against a woman she had once called 'friend.'

"She's been corrupted," Rhea had rasped at her, helplessly clutching her cloak. "I don't know what happened I--it's my fault I--" Edelgard had felt pity for her in that moment, briefly, fleetingly, but her glare had never wavered, her mercy never spared to the Nabatean at her feet. "Stop her--you have to--" 

Edelgard clutches Aymr tighter, metal grinding across metal, teeth set hard enough they ache in her skull. The relic burns molten in her hand, rain hissing as steam off the heated bone. Seiros' sword sits at her hip, a fail safe, a maybe in case she somehow loses her relic axe.

They're two figures out of a page of a history book being written, caught in a panorama of people, all waiting for the next move. Bandits and Soldiers alike, the students and knights from the monastery all at her back. All the people who at first swore they would never follow her now following out of a desperate desire to survive.

Byleth swings her sword up against an armored shoulder, smirk out of place and infuriating. Smug, confident. "The Crimson Emperor," she says, boots splattering mud up with each step she takes, rain running in rivulets across the mix of armor and leather and exposed skin. Edelgard lowers her head, tightens her grip on the handle of her shield, water dripping off the horns of her crown. "You're the last obstacle in my way." The blade ignites as she aims it at her, smirk turning into a grin this side of mad.

"As you are mine," Edelgard replies, bitter, angry. She had accepted the chance that the Professor might not have taken her side once she found out what she had kept hidden. She had accepted that she may have been brought into conflict with the woman she had tried so hard not to fall for but had anyway. But not like this, not half out of her mind with corruption and waging war for reasons she wasn't sure of. Five years of conflict and strife, five years of wondering what happened to her teacher.

Five years and they meet like this. It aches in the part of her she had to cut out, in the part of her that had since almost scarred over, the wound reopened and left to fester and rot the longer she fought this war with her Professor. Her teacher, her friend--

"You know one of us won't be walking away from this," Byleth says, interrupting her thoughts. "And while you have the bigger army..." she doesn't finish her thought, and Edelgard's jaw ticks, frustration turning quickly into anger that she quells with a harsh breath. Anger wouldn't help her win, wouldn't help her survive. It would only distract and make her lose focus.

"I learned much from the years you taught us at the monastery, My Teacher," she says, shifting her footing. The mud will make it dangerous, she knows, the ground slick and treacherous where one misstep could spell a lost limb or head. "And I know well that numbers mean little in the face of greater power, but as long as I draw breath you will not step foot out of this circle."

"I figured you would say that," Byleth replies, closing more of the distance still between them. A shudder of conversation rolls through their collective armies, each side moving, turning from them to each other. "Prove it, show me what you learned."

They move at the same time, the sword of the creator segmenting and skating along the edge of her shield, showering sparks across the mud as she charges forth, Aymr sweeping from the ground up in a brutal arc Byleth is forced to leap back to evade. The world around them explodes into a hurricane of chaos as both armies collide as their leaders do, violent and sudden and relentless. Edelgard forfeits her kite shield when Aymr's blade locks with Byleth's both of them leaning against them, sparks scattering in the air between, there and gone as the rain turns them to ash.

She can feel the power Byleth holds now after her fusion with the Goddess, after the corruption had taken root and did away with everything that had made the other woman such a gentle soul. Can feel how her muscles ache and her legs begin to tremble with the force needed to hold the other woman at bay. Byleth smirks baring down that much harder and Edelgard gives, Aymr's blade unhinging as she dances away and throws the other woman off balance. It's enough for Edelgard to plant her foot dead in the center of her chest, and realize her mistake when Byleth seizes her ankle and pulls, yanking her forward and then shoving back, both of them going down into the mud.

Byleth is winded but triumphant, grinning down at her like a wolf with prey almost between it's jaws. The first blow slams harshly into her jaw, teeth cutting into her cheek and the taste of copper spilling across her tongue. The second glances off the forearm she raises, metal clanging harshly off metal. The third she catches, Aymr left laying beside her as she grapples with the woman above her. Hands clutching wrists and a sword blade far too close to her throat. Their eyes meet, hold, breath misting out from the chill in the air. Byleth presses closer, weight sunk down on every part of Edelgard that could be mobile, pinning her, holding her down and grinding her into the mud below them.

"What's wrong Hresvelg?" She whispers, words nearly lost under the war raging around them. "You can't hope to finish uniting Fódlan if you can't defeat me." The sword inches a little closer, forcing her head back, chin tilted up and eyes flicking from it back to the smug glean of Byleth's. Edelgard snarls at her, baring bloodstained teeth, previously conquered anger returning.

"Do not think you've won," she hisses through gritted teeth, shoving back, arching her back and planting her heels into the ground. Her feet slide but she doesn't care, shoving up against the weight bearing down on her. It only gets a knee pressed to her sternum, air forced out of her as Byleth shoves her back into the ground. She coughs once, grip wavering enough the blade touches skin but doesn't cut, resting, threatening. 

"You struggle nicely," Byleth drawls, leaning down without shifting anything, close enough they share breath. "I would have liked to have you in my army, you know, it's a shame you refused." Edelgard jerks, struggles, feet sliding again in the mud even as pain radiates dully from where Byleth's knee still keeps her pinned.

"I could never join you as you are now," she spits, releasing her hold on Byleth's unarmed hand to reach for Aymr, distantly hearing the sound of someone calling to her. Hubert, she assumes, struggling to come to her aid when she'd rather he focus on his own battles. "Your path has brought you to madness and I refuse to abide by it." She seizes hold on her weapon just as Byleth kisses her, rough, biting, stinging pain sparking in her bottom lip where teeth break skin. She bites back on instinct, tasting both Byleth's blood and her own, growling in defiance.

In another time, in another place, she believes they could have been lovers. Been tender and careful and passionate, but not here. Not when Byleth tries to devour, to claim, tongue hot and prodding at her split lip and the teeth she keeps gritted. She loves her, but not like this.

Like this her only desire is to grant the other the mercy of a quick death.

Byleth pulls away, lips bloody, teeth bared in a sharp edged and almost possessive grin. "Even if you somehow win, now you'll never be able to forget me." 

Edelgard roars, swinging Aymr up from her side. Byleth's eyes widen as she pushes off her, strands of pale hair scattering in the wind where Aymr's axe nearly cut her. Edelgard uses the momentum to roll up to her feet again, shedding her mud soaked cloak, listening to the way the rain pounds against gold plated armor. Blood drizzles off her chin with the rain, chest heaving as she catches her breath.

"Good," Byleth says, nodding, like this was some sort of lesson. "That was good."

They clash again and again, sparks flying each time their blades connect. Over and over, feet sliding in the mud as the spin and twist, never quite breaking eye contact, predicting. It becomes something instinctual, both of them having sparred so many times back at the academy they know one another too well, know how the other ticks and what muscle twitch would lead to which strike. A kick, a punch, a thrown elbow that nearly glances a chin or catches a nose. Blades nicking vulnerable skin and blood flying off the ends in violent archs.

They become a whirlwind in the eye of a hurricane, locked in a dance to the death, an eagle and a wolf with bared fangs and talons. Aymr flies from her grip with Byleth's blade snaps out and catches her around the wrist, interlocking fragments screaming across her gauntlet. 

She doesn't lose the movement, bending back and arching into a flip that puts distance between them and gives her time to draw Seiros' blade, deflecting the other's next blow. Byleth pauses slightly at the sight of it, at the sight of her, muddy, bloodstained and furious. They're both exhausted, Byleth wearing about as many gashes as Edelgard can feel in the vulnerable places between the plates of her armor. She doesn't spare a glance to see how either army is fairing. She doesn't break eye contact with the self proclaimed Queen of Liberation.

Byleth doesn't look so confident now, a seriousness she recalls back from earlier days chiseled into the lines of her face. Eyes dark with a mix of anger and something she knows but refuses to accept. 

They can't keep this up and they know it. All of Byleth's power and finesse and skill matched almost evenly with Edelgard's own. But she knows--

"Why do you hesitate? Why do you hold back?" She asks, shifting slightly, closing her defenses and bracing for the next clash they will undoubtedly end up in. "Is there some part of you that still remains, My Teacher? Fighting to get out from underneath what has been made of you?"

Byleth looks conflicted, confused, eyes skittering away from her and down to her boots. Her hand presses to her forehead and Edelgard wonders if it's a ruse to draw her in, wonders if the other woman is cleverly putting on a show in an attempt to get her to lower her guard so she can strike the final blow. Edelgard still inches closer, tense and ready to spring away or block. "...Byleth?"

The other woman looks up at her, eyes wide, horror written across the lines of her face as she takes in the sight of her, of what's going on around them. "Edelgard--?" she rasps, lost, confused, hurt. "What--?" But lasts only a moment, the fleeting look at the woman she loved clouding over and darkening once again, teeth bared and a furious snarl bleeding between.

She doesn't try to beg as they clash again, swords hissing through the deluge of rain that had somehow started to fall harder, blinding them and casting a haze across the battleground. They resume their dance, ducking an overhead strike, lifting a foot to evade getting it swept out from underneath. Edelgard rolls to the side as the segemented blade whistles by her and snaps against the space she'd just vacated, but she's slowing down just as Byleth is.

"Fight it," she says finally, blade to blade, once again too close for her own comfort. "You have to fight it." Bodies press in, shoulders to biceps to hips, blades a grinding scream as they scrape across one another. "This isn't you!"

"You talk too much, Hresvelg!" she fires back, sneering and striking out again and again, forcing Edelgard to weave and dance and deflect, hissing when the whip knicks her thigh. "You should keep using that energy to fight!" A glancing blow off the shoulder, her elbow colliding hard enough cartilage crunches and Byleth stumbles away, blood running down across her lips and chin. 

A broken nose. 

She feels a flash of guilt, and it's enough Byleth uses her hesitation to retaliate, snapping the blade out in a sweeping arch she's almost out of range of. But she's too slow to get entirely out of the way, pain exploding white hot and agonizing as the blade cuts across her eye. It's enough to send her reeling, one hand lifting to clutch the now ruined socket, blood oozing between her fingers. She doesn't scream, but the noise she makes is still one of appropriate agony.

Byleth descends upon her at the same time Sylvain and Ingrid descend upon Byleth, their horses thundering through the mist. A moment later Catherine surges by her, Thunderbrand locking with the Sword of The Creator. Hubert is there when she staggers back, supporting her, shielding her as the violence plays out from her blind spot.

"You've lost." She hears Catherine say, voice gruff, tired, furious. "Just give up already."

"Don't make us kill you," Ingrid adds. "Because we will if we have to." But none of them wanted to, she knew, in truth not even her despite her willingness to do it anyway. To do it if there was no other hope of saving her.

But now knowing there might be--

"Subdue her," Edelgard grits out through the pain lancing through the side of her face. "...I know the Professor is still in there somewhere."

She let's Hubert lead her away, away to where Mercedes and Dorothea wait, working to heal the wounded.

She doesn't consider this a victory.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on the [Twitter!](https://twitter.com/modulatechaos) Where you can also find Logee too.


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